DeMar DeRozen will be Portland’s primary defensive target against the Raptors in Toronto. Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-USA TODAY Sports

Way back in the day, when I was an intern with the Blazers (08-09), Portland had a two-game stretch that very closely mirrors the two-game dip they find themselves in today in Toronto.

On December 30th 2008, the Blazers, minus Brandon Roy, faced the Boston Celtics, the defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics. On the back of maybe Greg Oden’s best performance as a professional (13 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals, a hip check into the first row on Ray Allen, and one very memorable incident in which he forgot to check out of the game), a great game from Steve Blake, and some serious fourth quarter leadership from Travis Outlaw, the upstart Blazers vanquished the champs (who were 28-4 at the time) 91-86.

A few nights later, Portland faced the New Orleans Hornets. NOLA, with Chris Paul and David West (remember that tandem you guys) were a strong team, one of the favorites to win the West at the time, and they handled the Blazers quite nicely 92-77.

Following the loss, one of very few home losses that season, I was standing in the home locker room, and somebody, Mike Barrett I think, mentioned the very salient point that without Brandon Roy for two games (he was also held out of the Hornets’ game) the Blazers and their fans would have been perfectly fine with beating New Orleans and losing to Boston. Because of that, we should all try not to get too upset about how everything went down on the second night of a two-night home stand.

And it’s that don’t let a loss to one team destroy a win against another even if you beat the team you should lose to and get whipped by the team you should be better than attitude that should inform ever Blazer fan about Wednesday’s game against the Raptors at the Air Canada Centre.

Wednesday will be the second and final time the Blazers and the Raptors square off. The first time these two teams met, in Portland on December 10th, many odd things happened. Andrea Bargnani, the albatross of the Raps organization, played a scant seven and a half minutes, but losing their biggest black hole didn’t improve Toronto’s offense. Portland took and missed 20 straight three-point attempts (setting a record that would last a whole week and then get broken at the Rose Garden by the Denver Nuggets) and still won by 18. And Amir Johnson collected one of the oddest ejections an NBA fan will ever see.

Since early December, both Toronto and Portland have gotten much much better. Eric Koreen from The National Post of Toronto notes that the Raptors and the Blazers have identical records since their last meeting. The difference here, is that 7-2 over the course of almost a month has Portland in the mix in some very limited sense. A vastly improved and streaking Raptors squad is still last in their division and in 11th place in the East, only ahead of three of the four worst teams in the NBA.

Blazers Starting 5: PG Damian Lillard, SG Wesley Matthews, SF Nicolas Batum, PF LaMarcus Aldridge, C J.J. Hickson

Raptors Starting 5: PG Jose Calderon, SG DeMar DeRozan, SF Mickael Pietrus, PF Ed Davis, C Aaron Gray

If I’m the Toronto Raptors, and I’m looking for a potential revenge game, Wednesday against the Blazers would be it. Losing by 20 to a team that can’t hit the broadside of a barn from three will leave a bad taste in the mouths of even the most sad sack basketball players.

Should getting a huge win at MSG against one of the hottest teams in the league deter Toronto in their desire to get one back against the Blazers? No. In fact, my thinking is that the Raptors are probably happy that Portland won on Tuesday. Winning against a great team can usually take away some of the urgency associated with playing a team with a bad record. Not that any NBA player would say they’d prefer to face a group of guys not on their best day (to be the best you have to beat the best when they’re playing their best) but I’m sure they’d all also take any advantage they can get.

On Portland’s end though, I’m sure there is a sense among the guys that winning in Toronto is almost as important as winning in Midtown Manhattan. The balance of talent in the NBA is such that there are teams that are clearly better than other teams, but on any given night any team can beat any other team. Thus, winning one game is meaningless. It’s winning on a regular basis that differentiates a good team from a great team. It’s why the NBA Finals is a series; any team can win once, the champion has to win four times. I can already see a lot of people penning their “Tuesday was a fluke, Wednesday was a reality check” gamer. I’m sure these Blazers are doing that too.

Winning in New York was a big deal, don’t get me wrong, but it’s rendered less of a big deal if Portland doesn’t beat the Raptors. It might not be a big deal at all if the Blazers go 0-3 on the rest of this trip (which is certainly a possibility).

What to Watch For

• Are the Blazers over Tuesday’s win of the year (see what I did there). A big win is like a big loss, it needs to be gotten over in a hurry. Portland should pat themselves on the back for the way they played in NYC, it might have been their best win of the season, it certainly was the best win of 2013. But if they’re still celebrating Tuesday’s win when Wednesday’s game starts, they’re in big trouble.
• Can Portland do some of the things against Toronto that they did against New York. By that I mean can the Blazers get the ball inside to J.J. Hickson early, get LaMarcus Aldridge rolling with his jumper, and get efficient offense from Damian Lillard and Nicolas Batum. The Knicks were not shooting well Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean Portland’s offense wasn’t mostly responsible for building a 19-point lead. If the Blazers can play the kind of efficient offense they brought to Madison Square Garden at the ACC, they have a really good chance of getting to that split of the road trip two games in. As far as defensive carryover, Tuesday might not be the best game to look at. The Blazers let Carmelo Anthony tie the league’s season high night in scoring. There isn’t a dude on Toronto on Melo’s level, but it’s never a good idea to let somebody score basically at will.  However, if Portland can get a big lead, then lose the big part but maintain the lead part, and then still win, well that’s OK with me. Winning by any means necessary is good enough on the road.
• Will the Blazers hit a three. Portland is 0-20 from three on the season against the Raptors. Their first three ball Wednesday night will be their first against Toronto this season. It’s a meaningless stat, the Blazers beat the Raptors without hitting a three, but it certainly will help gauged the readiness of this Portland squad if they come out Wednesday and knock down a couple treys to start the game.

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

Damian Lillard continues to provide solid leadership from the point guard position, even on a night like Monday’s when he shot 2-of-14 from the field and missed all five of his three point attempts. Photo courtesy of USPRESSWIRE

Well…

It seems very unlikely that Blazer fans will ever see another game quite like the “game” that was played Monday night in the Rose Garden. On any other night, the team that takes and misses 20 three-point field goals and shoots a hair over 40% from the field is probably the team that loses. Monday, Portland played like one of the worst teams in the NBA. Luckily the only other team that played worse than the Blazers happened to be sharing their court.

The Toronto Raptors are the kind of team Portland fans should hope the Blazers do not become. Toronto’s star, if you can call him that, is in the process of being run out of town. Their big off season acquisition hasn’t quite lived up to the hype, or at least he hasn’t been able to stay healthy. A couple of their young guys have been inconsistent. They’ve lost more than four games for each one that they’ve won. Things are not good.

Monday, things were not good for the Raptors on a pretty epic scale. Andrea Bargnani and Kyle Lowry, the aforementioned star and acquisition respectively, played a combined 25 minutes and scored a total of three points. Mickael Pietrus, a one-time sure shooting sniper, went an abysmal 3-of-13 from the field and 1-of-7 from three. DeMar Derozan scored 20 points, but he took 16 shots to get there. Aaron Gray had to play almost nine minutes.

Also, Amir Johnson did this:

To say this was a bad game for the Raptors, is probably a bit of an understatement.

Things were far from great on Portland’s end. Damian Lillard went 2-of-14 from the field, Victor Claver (getting his first career start and seeing his longest extended run since pre-season) hit on only two of his 12 field goal attempts, Sasha Pavlovic shot 5-of-12, Nolan Smith shot 4-of-10, Luke Babbitt shot 2-of-9, and as a team the Blazers shot a historically bad 0-of-20 from three.

The difference for Portland came from LaMarcus Aldridge shooting 11-of-19 from the field for 30 points, and J.J. Hickson shooting 7-of-7 from the field for 16 points. Most nights, two guys playing decent basketball isn’t enough. Monday it was.

In my game preview, I predicted that it would be LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard who would be tasked to win Monday’s game all by themselves. I was half right. Although I’m a fan of J.J. Hicksons’ playing, and his 16 points certainly helped the Blazers achieve a much needed win, I’d like to spend some time talking about the half of my prediction that I got wrong.

Lillard regression game happening.

— Clint Peterson (@Clintonite33) December 11, 2012

The above Tweet dropped at some point in the middle of Monday’s game. At the time I chose not to respond because I didn’t really disagree, and I didn’t want to be exposed for the homer that I am. Yes Damian had a rough night Monday, and yes it’s very likely that some of his hot start will be neutralized by bumps in the road that every rookie experiences. But to call it a regression game is a bit harsh.

Without Wesley Matthews or Nicolas Batum in the offense, Damian was called on to do a lot more to keep the Blazers on the score board. Also, with outside shooters not on the floor, Toronto’s bigs were free to collapse to the rim on every drive. Those factors helped to explain Damian’s shooting struggles from the field. His three-point shooting struggles can’t be explained away by lack of personnel, but I will say that often shooting woes can be contagious. So that’s how I rationalize an otherwise uninspiring offensive performance from Damian Lillard.

But the real reason Monday’s was not a regression game for Portland’s big-time rookie was because he does so much more than just score points, and on Monday while he was having a rough night putting the ball in the basket, the rest of his game didn’t slip.

“Just because I’m not making shots doesn’t mean I put my head down and just clock out of the game,” Damian told me after the game. “There’s still plays to be made, I still need to defend. I still need to be there supporting my teammates. If I’m not making shots that means somebody else is.”

It’s this mentality, that he can and is the leader of this team, that separates Lillard from other rookies. And it’s his ability to stick to that mentality even when he’s having an off night that keeps him moving forward even after a game like Monday, a game that will certainly hurt his shooting percentage numbers.

One thing that is truly amazing about Lillard, is that he is still very clearly learning how to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of his game. Damian’s pull-up game is very strong. His deep ball can be deadly (not when it doesn’t go down of course). Finishing at the rim, especially in traffic, isn’t his strongest attribute, but he believes in himself and he’s willing to throw his body into the lane. The key for Dame going forward is going to be figuring out which weapons in his arsenal to deploy at what time.

Monday was not a strong example of good decision making, but he’s still working on it.

“It’s all a read for me,” Damian said when I asked him about his process of deciding when and how to attack on offense. “Depending on how they play the ball screens it’s all a read for me. In my head everything’s pretty simple, it’s just a matter of making the shots or making the right pass. I just didn’t make the shots tonight.”

It won’t be like that every night. At some point those shots will go in. At some point his defensive reads will be more proactive than reactive. And at some point, he’ll make the right call between pulling up in the lane for the jumper, or diving to the rim for the lay-up, or passing off to an open shooter in the corner. The purpose of a night like Monday is for Damian to learn and improve at game speed. That’s what he does and will continue to do.

I’ll get on board for a regression game from Lillard when he has a game that doesn’t include three assists and no turnovers in a decisive fourth quarter after having gone three quarters with only three assists and two turnovers. I’ll get on board for a regression game when Damian plays 35 and a half minutes, every offensive possession with the ball in his hands, and turns the ball over more than twice.

Games like that are coming. They have to, he is a rookie after all. But Monday wasn’t one of them.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the unquestioned highlight of the evening. With 5:42 remaining in the game’s final quarter, one Luke Babbitt caught the ball on the wing, pumped-faked Mikael Pietrus into next week, and then drove hard to hoop to dunk on Ed Davis with two hands.

I’ll leave you with the video evidence.

The Blazers face a much more formidable opponent in the San Antonio Spurs Thursday at the Rose Garden.

Box Score

Standings

Raptors Rupture

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

LaMarcus Aldridge led all scorers with 30 points, helping the Blazers overcome the Raptors on Monday night. Photo courtesy of USPRESSWIRE

Andrea Bargnani and the Toronto Raptors have lost four straight and 17 overall coming into Portland on Monday. Photo courtesy of USPRESSWIRE.

I’d like to spend a minute talking about the idea of a “must-win” game. I’m of the opinion that there are very few single games that an NBA team literally must win. Although each game matters and is important in its own way, the season is long enough that very infrequently is a team’s post season fate determined by the outcome of one single game.

The only games that are “must win” are elimination games in the Playoffs. So why then do teams, players, and media members like to talk so much about “must win” games? Well, first it makes for interesting copy, bulletin board material, and motivational speeches. But more than that, it is very true that some games are more important than others. Saying a game is a “must win,” instead of calling a game a “pretty important to win for the betterment of the near future” is sexier, even if it’s less factually accurate.

For some teams, let’s call them competitors, the “must win” games are those against the other elite teams in the league. These are the marquee match-ups. The regular season prelude to very important, literally “must win” games, that will come in the post season.

For teams like the Blazers, let’s call them up and comers, the “must win” games are a little harder to define. Games against elite squads are important. Getting a win against a good team can make a bad week, a bad month, or a bad season a little more bearable. Also, not getting blown to bits by the best guys in the NBA is a good way to keep young egos (or old egos for that matter) from falling to pieces. But putting too much emphasis on beating the best teams in the league is an easy way to set a young team up for failure. It’s not going to happen that often, or ever.

So does that mean that games against bad teams are “must win” games for the Blazers? As I said, the answer isn’t quite so clear. Beating bad teams is important, especially if you’re like me and you think Portland is actually in the second-to-last tier of the NBA, and not the last tier. The flip-side of that, of course, is that beating the very worst teams in the league is a disservice to the Blazers’ future.

All that being said, if there ever was an important game for these Trail Blazers to win at this moment in time, it would be Monday when the face off against the team tied for the second worst record in the league. I say this not because it will have an impact on the future of this season, and also knowing full well that Portland and Toronto are going to be in a dog fight for ping pong balls this spring. I think the Blazers need to win Monday to prove to themselves that they still can.

Portland has had a number of “pretty important to win for the betterment of the near future” games already this season. Last month the Blazers played the Rockets at home after starting the season 1-3 at the Rose Garden and having lost all three games in a short home stand. They won that one. On the road, Portland played a win-less Washington Wizards team after losing to a bad Detroit Pistons team. We know how that went. So, as far as these games go, the Blazers are 1-1.

Monday is as good a time as any for a rubber match.

Blazers Starting 5: PG Damian Lillard, SG Wesley Matthews, SF Luke Babbitt, PF LaMarcus Aldridge, C J.J. Hickson

Raptors Starting 5: PG Kyle Lowry, SG DeMar DeRozan, SF Linas Kleiza, PF, Andrea Bargnani, C Jonas Valanciunas

It’s kind of strange to say this, but Toronto has a couple of guys on the roster who could give Portland fits Monday night. Kyle Lowry played a number of great games in the Rose Garden as a Rocket. DeMar DeRozan is the kind of rim attacker who will benefit from the fact that the Blazers don’t have a shot blocker on the roster. I feel like last time I checked in on Linas Kleiza, he could shoot threes, and everybody who has watched Portland at least once this season knows that shooters playing the Blazers tend to not miss very often.

The match-up that the Blazers can and should take advantage of, and could swing this game in Portland’s favor, is going to be LaMarcus Aldridge versus Andrea Bargnani. LA and Bargs will always be linked. Bargnani was taken first overall in the 2006 NBA draft by the Toronto Raptors, LaMarcus was taken second by the Chicago Bulls and then immediately traded to the Trail Blazers. It was Andrea’s five-year $50 million contract that turned the power forward market on it’s ear and led to a difficult negotiation for LaMarcus’s extension.

Monday when the two face off, one has become the albatross around his team’s neck (NOT LA) and the other is basically the only thing between his team a 10-win season (now I’m talking about LA). LaMarcus should be able to dominate Bargnani. Whether or not he will, or whether or not Bargs will be able to stretch the defense with his shooting and have some kind of positive impact on his team, is why this game is going to be played.

What to Watch For

• Who plays, how much, and how well. As of this writing, it has been announced that Nicolas Batum is out and Wesley Matthews is a game-time decision. So far no starter as been announced to replace Nic. I’m going with Luke Babbitt. If Wesley doesn’t play, things could get ugly in a hurry for Portland. That is unless Babbitt can knock down 25 straight three-pointers. I would say that Matthews wants to play, considering how poorly his team did Saturday, but he said this morning to Joe Freeman that he understands the danger of getting hurt for real. The good news is that Will Barton and Victor Claver are back from the D-League, so at least with two down there are two more coming. **UPDATE** It has been announced that Wesley Matthews is also a scratch for Monday’s game. The starting SG, SF for tonight will be Sasha Pavlovic and Victor Claver. I’m no D-League historian, but I bet there have been very few instances of a guy playing in the D-League one night and starting in the NBA the next.
• Can Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge win this game on their own. They couldn’t beat the Kings by themselves, but at least they know coming into the game Monday that they’ll be down a couple very potent weapons.
• Are people going to show up. When the Blazers’ brass announced the re-birth of the sellout streak only a few games after announcing the original streak’s demise, I thought it was a bit premature considering that games such as Monday’s existed. If it were my team to run, and my streak to start and stop with impunity, I would have waited to get it going again. The RG wasn’t empty empty on Saturday night (not empty like Charlotte, Detroit, or Washington) but it certainly wasn’t full. My guess is there will be fewer fans on hand Monday than there were Saturday. It will be hard for management to justify juicing the numbers this early in their new campaign. Maybe there’s a book out there that says five or six three-game sellout streaks are more important to a growing franchise than one dubiously extended sellout streak. I don’t know. I’m not President of the Trail Blazers.

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com